Principles of the First Circle of Love The Relationship of Love to Allah, to Others, and to Our Nafs

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1 Principles of the First Circle of Love The Relationship of Love to Allah, to Others, and to Our Nafs In the Holy Qur an, Allah Swt says: We shall show them our signs on the horizons and within themselves, until it becomes clear to them that He is the Truth. Does not thy Lord suffice, since He witnesses over all things? Behold: are they still in doubt about the meeting with their Lord? Lo, is not He surrounding all things? Most of you know this from your practices. Before I continue with the circles, and I think I left off about love, I want to remind us that we live in a very dark forest of materialism. We are helpless at times against the ocean waves of desires and multiplicities. We are tossed back and forth by the waves of attachments. Sometimes it feels that before we can recover from one situation or one encounter, we get tossed around again. Sometimes, if you know what it is like to swim in a very turbulent sea, fear comes into our hearts, and we think about all the things we could lose or that we are attached to our possessions, our relationships, our wealth. These attachments themselves are like waves that are constantly pulling us like the rip tide, further out into the ocean of darkness, into that roaring, turbulent sea where our cries don t seem to be heard. No matter which direction we turn sometimes, we realize that all this could end, and that what is perishable and transient is quite threatening to us. In the midst of all of this comes a beautiful, calming breeze this jedhba, this Divine attraction. It is then we can feel that love now is no longer the sea that is pulling us, but the love is pulling us. Not only is it pulling us under, it is buoying us up. It pulls us in the direction toward a destination that seems a correct one, but we don t know exactly what it is. That breeze of jedhba unfortunately is not continuous. It comes and goes. During 1

2 those moments, the traveler / sojourner feels new life, new hope. Under the pull of that jedhba / Divine attraction, the sojourner (inshā a-llāh, we) go beyond the realm of all this multiplicity and we get focused. We prepare ourselves and provide for ourselves, and Allah gives us the rizq / provision to journey and free ourselves from the tumultuous sea or the impenetrable forest. In the terminology of the lexicon of the knowers /gnostics, this journey is called the sayr ul suluk, the wayfarer s spiritual journey. Suluk of course means traveling along the path, and ser means observing the specificities, the particularities, the marvels and awesomeness of the phases and stages one encounters along the way implying that one pauses to see. The rizq / provisions in this case that are necessary for this journey are comprised of spiritual practices, readat practices that are more ascetic in nature, disciplining of the soul. Since we have to let go of the grasp of these material attachments, which is very challenging and difficult to do, the traveler begins to cut those chains of attachments to this worldly realm little by little, and leaves this alam al-tab behind slowly, as we leave this world behind eventually, anyway. Just as we are recovering from the challenges and strains of the journey, we enter into the barzakh, this in-between world which is the world of kathirat anfusiha. (Remember per al faq, per a fus first circle, second transmission.) It means a kind of mental abundance. It s hard to translate, so we ll leave it in the Arabic. Here we realize what Allah Swt has given us are the most precious treasures that the material and external multiplicities have stored within this physical world, per ser anfus. At times, one perceives these imaginal beings that come into being as a result of our encounter with or our concern with the external world, that are the byproducts of these worlds. Our imaginations, our thoughts take form. We become preoccupied with these thoughts as if they are realities. They become impediments to our journeying, and they take away our sincerity, our peace of mind. When we want to rest in the dhikr of Allah for a short time, these internal voices call us to the worldly things. 2

3 I don t want to give the wrong impression: they are your own voice, your own justifications and imaginings. They are our own rationalizations calling us out of that state of remembrance, and they threaten our whole beingness. One poet wrote, The soul, trampled by fancy imagination every day, on profit and loss, and the fear of downfall, it shall retain neither purity nor subtlety nor light. Nor shall there remain a path for its ascension toward heaven. The distraction and distress that is caused by these mental multiplicities are more powerful than the attraction of the physical world. If you think the physical world is attractive, think how attractive your own rationalizations, your own desires are. This is the anfus. We can purposefully and willingly retreat and isolate ourselves and get away from these disturbances of the physical world. We can go to the cave like I used to do in India, but there is no escape from these psychic/ mental disturbances or attractions. We can t free ourselves from these temptations of the imaginal world, from the desires of the lower self, so easily. They are always so near to us, and always intimate with us. It is that relationship we would love to have with Allah Swt that we have with our nafs ammāra. The salik or salika on the path, the sojourner on the way of iman, sincerity, ikhlas, ibada, and servanthood to Allah: that person ceases to be afraid of these enemies. He or she, with their mind, and with the help of the beauty of the music of the spheres, the celestial song of the dhikr, of the heartbeat takes to the tariqah, to the road, to the path that leads only to one destination. [It leads to] a determination, when you choose this path, to leave behind the realm of the nafs ammāra, and even the realm of the barzakh, the intermediate world. But each one of us who travels has to be aware, alert, and attentive, because there tends to always remain some of those tempting thoughts, some corner of the heart ready to be changed back to the world. We can easily be distracted and fooled to believe that we have freed ourselves of that presence, and that we have been relieved of all the remnants of the intermediate 3

4 world/ barzakh. But when we reach the fount and want to drink from the fountain of hikma, those thoughts attack us. Those desires make us question. Those temptations rise. Those distractions are there in the form of people, money, ideas, fears, questions: did I do the right thing? Have I spent the last 10, 15, 20, years of my life in the right pursuit? [They come] just as you come to drink from the wellspring of haqiq. We get those questions as we are older; even when we are young we have those questions. Should I go this way or that way? Do I do this or that? Should I make this choice or that choice? Should I marry this person or that person? Should I live here or there? Those are the predecessors to the other, more challenging questions, and these are challenging enough. They attack us, and sometimes, they kill us with their severity / qahr. Its meaning is more than defeat; it s embarrassment, indignation. There is an example that has been given of such a salik, as like a person who fills the pool at his house with water, but never touched it. So all the dirt and impurities have settled to the bottom, and the water seems clear. He assumes that the clarity and purity of the water is permanent. But as soon as he wants to enter the pool or wash something in it, then all the dirt comes up from the bottom. It stirs it up and contaminates the clear water. Spots of dirt reappear on the surface. Only through constant spiritual effort and serious practices do we get that level of yaqin / certitude and suhl / inner peace where these elements within us can be subjugated, can be overcome and not disturb us. When we pass through the realm of the physical, to the barzakh, we enter into the realm of the rūh/ our spirit. Then there are other stages, inshā a-llāh. In those stages, we witness our own nafs, and we witness the Sifat of Allah, the Divine Names and Attributes. Slowly we reach the station of fana, and then we find our baqa / subsistence in Allah. Oh, one whose heart is revived by love never dies, inscribed in our own immortality on the tablet of the universe, Hafez said. That takes us back to love. 4

5 The first principle of love we all know. In this sphere of the world, we have to learn to choose the loved one very carefully and very wisely. Okay, good night! Because there is no guarantee that the one you love will love you in return. And, further, if you choose a beloved among the creatures of Allah Swt, you know from the very beginning that one of you is going to perish. So what s the point of loving a mortal human being? Whatever you choose, you would be dependent in one way or another on someone. So at least it s wise to choose someone who is dependent in one way or another for their needs on Allah Swt. The real essence of love is to love someone who loves you, who is always there. That s what you are always looking for. And who will, in your mind and heart, never perish who is not dependent on anyone for their needs, who doesn t want anything from you other than you, yourself, to serve you. So the first step of love is taken by that One Who is All Powerful and All Loving. Hu. Who is that? He/ Hu is the beloved that loves you for whoever you are, and takes the first step toward you with those words, yuhibbuhum. I spoke in detail on that last night. He loves them, they love Him. The second principle we have been asked to learn is Allah Swt is not dependent on anyone, is not mortal, and takes the first step toward you. Then it is our duty to be grateful and to love Him in return. If you don t do that, it s very in simple terms stupid of us. It lacks loyalty. And, in a sense, we are doomed to the transient love. The third principle that we should understand and observe, as saliks on the sayr ul suluk (don t worry, I ll link it up with human beings in a minute), is that by looking at this circle of love, we can see the action of yuhibbuhum starts with the Beloved, with Allah. Shall I stop here and link it for you, because everybody is thinking about people, especially if you are young. We always think about love of people. Therefore, those who are further away from Allah Swt were also far from their own self. As you get closer to Allah, you also get closer to one another. Slowly, gradually, you move toward the center point we were talking about. That shows us that when we make progress toward 5

6 the love of Allah Swt, we also acquire the nearness or closeness of other aspects of creation. Real love for Allah will attract mutual love for others there s the link. Real love for Allah, true love for Allah will also attract mutual love for others, because the nature of essential true love eliminates the negative feelings, and you have this great desire. The litmus test or the template is harmony, balance, reciprocity. Allah loves you, and you love Allah. The person who loves Allah would be better to love you, because you love Allah. Loving Allah means loving the harmony, the peace, the attributes, the qualities of the al faq. As one sits in muraqabah, which is a training in and of itself, the seeker begins to feel an illuminated circle in front of this latifa nafs. Since desire is a characteristic of nafs, and desire is very strong by nature, if it is directed as I just said earlier toward the object of something of creation, we make endless efforts to get it. If you want something really badly, you are going to try very hard to get it. It could be a thing, or a person. The lesson in this that we learn from our muraqabah and our fiqh teaches us that you cannot get rid of that trait. You cannot get rid of that trait of the nafs, but you can divert the center of attraction from what is limited, mortal or physical to the immortal. When in the course of that jedhb of the nafs, the love will automatically flow. The love for Allah is ultimately the goal, and anything that is in harmony with that love for Allah will be in harmony with you. Hence, you can love the creatures and the creation, because it s in harmony with the love that you have for Allah. When it s contrary to the love you have for Allah, then there are all kinds of problems: psychic problems, imaginal problems, real problems. For instance, someone may say, You live your life. I ll live my life. We love each other; you can be a Christian, and I ll be a Muslim. Or you be a Hindu and I ll be a Buddhist. As long as one person isn t really anything, you might get along. Or if both are not really anything, and they are only names, then you will get along on a very physical, material 6

7 level. But if you are both very pious, it s going to be very difficult. You have to try to find that out. Most people will start trying to find that out, but then they fall in love. And you stop trying to find it out, because you don t want to hear the answer. You are going to make up your own imaginal answer, and hope you are right. But if you really have that love for Allah Swt at the core of your being, you will most likely attract others who have it, just like your nafs attracts a person with the same intensity that you wish that you would attract the love of Allah. It might just be fine, and you can travel together. There are examples here, in this room. That s because we have husbands and wives in the same room. They are examples because they are in this room. It s a painful thing to find out that it s wrong, because the attachment to then nafs ammāra is so strong that it overtakes one, just as the wisdom starts to come, and it can destroy you. We also have that example in the room, too. And that s a shame. It is a shame shameful. But we say in Arabic: mamaloosh! Oh, that s not Arabic? It s Yiddish. The question comes, how do you do justice to your practice, to the thing that is going to save you, direct you, guide you, put you into the attraction of the Divine light that will lift you from the dark jungle, that s going to take you up from the turbulent ocean? How do you do justice to this meditation / muraqabah? The answer is the effects of love show the way. If you have the capacity to love, you have the capacity to love Allah and accept the love of Allah. Because the beloved comes to love, you have the capacity to love human beings. The absolute requirement is that one who loves submits to the beloved. The requirement of the nafs is one who loves the person is required to submit to the love of the other person. Gee, it s the same! Yes, it s so much the same it s the absolute opposite. It s the circle where right wing and left wing come around and they are so close to each other you can t tell the difference between them. 7

8 This is, I think, a fact which we see in the day to day world. How people are for material gains. A person can avoid and ignore many people, but it s very hard to ignore the commands of the beloved, because those commands come in the heart but so do the other ones. For the sake of the loved one, a person will sacrifice their life. They will give all their wealth to someone. They will lose their honor to someone. If you frame your life around muraqabah, it teaches us to love Allah first with such sincerity, and to obey Allah first, and his Messenger and his deputies. The Prophet Mohammed (sal) pointed out the symptoms of true love and the principle standard. He who likes to adopt my ways and who accepts my advice wholeheartedly loves me with sincerity. If you love the Prophet, and you shun the Sunnah, it s very difficult to call that the love of the Prophet. It s a kind of pretense. If you try to follow the Sunnah without the love of the Prophet, you find obstacle after obstacle until you discipline yourself and force yourself. That s how you become a pseudo fakhī. You become so involved in the rules and regulations as the only way to keep yourself straight on the path. But if you come through love, it comes automatically. The Sunnah isn t even called the Sunnah; it s just the way you live your life. Understand that this relationship of love and obedience and following is very important. You can have a Ferrari car, but you have no gas. What do you have? The only way you can get it to move is to push it or get it towed. That s like performing an action without sincerity. Or, you have the gas, and the engine works beautifully. It s moving forward very fast, and there is nothing that can stop it, except running out of fuel. Go as fast as you want on the autobahn in Germany, for as long as you want. But the faster you go, the more dangerous it is. Just the slightest turn of the wheel can flip you over. Then you won t have any Ferrari anymore, and you won t have yourself any more. When you have a destination in your mind, and you want to travel and be sure you get there, there are certain constraints to follow in order to get to the destination. You can 8

9 have the most powerful car, but you cannot endanger yourself if you want to arrive at the destination. If you endanger yourself, and you indulge yourself so fully in that car, the destination would become the secondary purpose. The speed would be the most important. Let s get out of the car and walk, because walking on this path demands that we have love. Love is the fuel. The highway is the Sharia, the well-trodden path. If you ignore the path, then you waste your time. You are not going to arrive at your destination. You never reach the goal. Now, there is another possibility. Everything is working all right, but there is no road and no gas, and the car is just something to be seen, like a museum piece. The best thing is to follow the path. If you keep this in mind, know that as long as you are driving in the car, [you should] be careful. Recently, someone said to me, Be careful when you are driving, because at some point, you are only 3 feet away from a disaster. If someone is passing you, you are only 3 feet away from a total disaster. You have no control over the other person; you only have control over yourself. So, if you are going, even at a high speed, you always have to be very, very careful on the path. [So that is] the first circle of love, per anfus, per a faq. There is another circle that is bigger than the first one. The words of the circle are yuhibbunahu wa yuhibbuhum. It means this Divine Love is, like the universe, always expanding, which means, as it is expanding and you are expanding, the closeness to Allah is increasing. Then there is a third circle, which is even bigger than the first two. The Divine love is expanding to such an unlimited extent, but still the recitation is the same. Now, you start to realize that all that you have searched for in life is attainable, if you die before you die. That is the ever - lasting love. Allah is Everlasting. There is a difference between work that you do, just to do work; and work that you do out of love. People say, There s love in that person s food. I love my job! That means it s such a good job that it evokes love in you. 9

10 Some people use it off-handedly and stupidly. They find out that they love the job, but hate the boss. They love the job they thought they had, but it wasn t the job they really had. The way you love a job is when your job is one of love and is spiritual. Then you can love it. No matter what the task is, no matter how hard the work is, no matter how much concentration, the love is there. This is not easily accepted by the nafs ammāra. The nafs wants pleasure; it wants distraction; it wants power. The only way to overcome this disease of the nafs is with love. Just like with human beings. The carnal self we think is being satisfied and overcome by love, but really what is happening is it is just being fed by what appears to be love. If there is real love and real affection, it sees you through difficulties, separations, illnesses, other kinds of difficulties. When the nafs is not being fed, this is analogous to the love of Allah. It s all possible. If it was impossible, we wouldn t look for it and seek it once, twice, thrice again and again and again, until you find something as near to it as it can be. Isn t that right? Some of you can attest to that. When the rays of the love reach the nafs, the self evolves and accepts the commands from the ālam al-amr of Allah Swt. The strength of that love is so strong, so great, that nothing can bear its weight. The actions that one performs for the sake of the Beloved are done with full love, full concentration, full intention. That s why we say, fī sabīli-llāh. This is the reason why a person who is a true abd becomes overwhelmed by the Divine Presence, to the point where the nafs, which was once the nafs ammāra, nafs lawwama, becomes nafs mulhama and so forth, and becomes restless for the commands of Allah. The relationship between Allah and His slaves is one of love. It is not one of rules and regulations. That s why when rules and regulations enter into the love between human beings it causes friction. You never told me I had to do it this way. Why now are you telling me what to think or say? Why do I have to do it your way? And on and on. 10

11 Familiarity in this cause breeds contempt. Rules start to come. Regulations start to come you can do this, but not that; I want this, not that until a person believes, You never understood me. We never really discussed that. But if you have the understanding of the step by step evolution of the nafs, and the circles of love as they expand, the illuminations of the circles of love does it sound familiar to you: tajalli bari ta ala, illuminations through the asmā al-sifat wa bari ta ala well, then, you have a template. Your attention can be drawn to what the confusion is. Understand, that if you study the Qur an, you don t get commanded, told or guided once, but time after time after time, in different ways. As you read and study the Qur an and try to live it, you understand the realities, the importance, the blessings, the advantages. You remember Allah doesn t gain anything, doesn t lose anything, just like you can light a hundred candles off this candle and not lose anything from the flame. If the relationship is according to rules and laws, then the law is there. There s the rule; that s it. There s the law; that s it. Then you have to have courts to interpret it. It doesn t change. The rule is the rule; it doesn t change. If you wrote the law this way and then that way, nobody could follow the law, because nobody would know what it is. That s not the way it is with Allah Swt. If human beings don t follow the guidelines of Allah Swt, you have another chance. If you don t understand it this way, Allah tells you that way. Flexible, flexible, flexible. When human love is inflexible, the love goes way. Flexible doesn t mean, I m going to do everything you want me to do or You do everything I want you to do. It is from the heart that it is done. The relationship between the seeker and lover of Allah should be one of love and not just of form. This is why so many women for so many centuries have suffered in the world, because the men have put them in a box. They call it marriage or whatever, and that s it. You follow the form, and that s it. No freedom. No chance to grow. The love for Allah produces concern, care, and well being from Allah for all of His creation; and because it is from Allah, you feel that 11

12 way toward His creatures and His creation, and your brothers and sisters. The emotions that go along with that love are the only real, true emotions. They are not imaginal. The reason why we can have these imaginal emotions is they have a scent of, a drop of, a molecule of the true emotion. We transfer this love from Allah to love of human beings. If you have the real love for Allah, you do have a love for human beings. You don t care if there is no guarantee that the other person will love you as much, because that is not what is important. Sure, periodically you care. But in reality, what you care for is the source of that love. Because of this, the Prophet (sal) said, the religion of Islam requires from its followers a feeling of goodwill and welfare for all of Allah s creations. When a person is truthful, honest with Allah, they will have an honest relationship with Rasūlu- Llāh (sal). When you are honest with Rasūlu-Llāh (sal), you have a good relationship with your Shaykh. When you are honest with your Shaykh, you have a good relationship with your brothers and sisters, and vice versa. Honest doesn t mean what comes out of your mouth is always honest. It means honest in love, for there are times when things should not come out of your mouth. That trait we call honesty means that you should always think about the welfare of the other person. By doing that, you are inviting that person toward you, toward Allah, toward the truth, toward the path. Did I carry the analogy enough for you to understand what this means in terms of human relationships? I hope so, because that s very important. This is not some diatribe against human relationships. This is a template which very few people are courageous enough to have. Question & Answer Student: Would it be accurate to say that loving Allah is loving the values? If one teaches one s children the values, one is loving Allah. One is loving one s children, but it is the love of Allah one is giving to one s children. If one loves one s children as a possession 12

13 Shaykh: As usual, you do a very nice reduction. You should be a chef. Every attribute of Allah swt has a value, of course. The highest value that attribute could have. When you are teaching your children or yourself come to understand this. You teach children, so you ask about children; but sometimes children are in their 30 s, 40 s, 50 s, even 70 s. When you teach children values, you are giving value to those attributes which you want them to express in their character. When you are on this path as I have described it today, and you embrace it, then your character changes, because you are now valuing those attributes of Allah in a totally different way. How? Through your muraqabah, through opening these latā if. Through the latā if, you see things differently. As you do that, things take on a different value. Sometimes they are even so different that they are almost anti-social. People s love for one another spiritually transcends the limitations of society. If you are caught in forms, it becomes problematic. When you are becoming aware of these values, you are becoming aware of exactly that: how valuable they are. Why do we call them values? They have worth. We talk about universal values at Legacy all the time. They are the epitome of value. Nothing is greater for the human being than the shadow of the value of compassion and mercy, of love, patience, beauty, tolerance, and understanding, etc. Yes, we are giving something of tremendous value, if that is what you are asking, when we are building character. That s why Rasūlu-Llāh (sal) said, I didn t come to create another religion (form). What s the exact quote? (Arabic) I was not sent except to perfect the character (conduct) of behavior. Akhlaq, aqida. Yet you have the whole Islamic world and all the Muslims who are wrapped up in form. He said that he was here to correct the character, to complete the character or the behavior of the human being, and make it harmonious, at one with Allah. That is the value. Here s how you do it. I m not telling you; Allah is telling you. I m interpreting it. The Prophet didn t start to talk and then Allah verified what he was 13

14 saying. It was the other way around. Here s what he is saying even to the point where you make an error, and again and again, Allah is all forgiving. How do you teach a child or yourself what it means to be all forgiving? Human beings cannot be all forgiving; only Allah can be all forgiving. We can entertain the idea of forgiving; we can attempt forgiveness. We can forgive in our hearts though we may not be able to forgive in our actions. You can forgive someone understanding their state, but you can also decide not to enter into any other relationship with that individual because of their nature, their character, or lack thereof. That s knowledge. That s marifah. Not only do we teach facts in school, but we teach something other than form. Aqida is not form. It takes a form, but itself is not a form. Asalaam aleikum. 14